During our last deployment at our last base, I was the new mom of a 2.5 month old. I was selling my house in preparation for a cross-country move, and it was the holiday season. In the military, lots of us call deployments like this one “Operation Deny Holiday”. I was one of the lucky few who was able to fly home to my family during the actual holidays, where many of my friends were stuck by themselves. In an effort to get everyone to stay socially active, and to motivate myself to keep my house clean, I started something I called Silly Suppers. I invited all the wives and their kids to come to my house for themed dinners on an every-other-week basis. There was a core group of girls that came every week, and there were others that came only once in a while. It was awesome to have a reason to keep my house clean, and to have adult conversation every single week. I hope that at some point I have friends at this base to do the same thing here during another deployment.

Here are some of the themes that I remember using. It was over a year and a half ago, so bear with me!

Pancakes In Your Pajamas – I provided the pancake batter. Everyone brought their favorite mix-ins. We had everything from cranberries to gummy bears to chocolate chips! It was a ton of fun to chill with breakfast for supper! Who doesn’t like a good pancake?!

Worms In Dirt I made the chocolate pudding, whipped cream, gummy worm, milk dud treat. Everyone just came to enjoy it with me! We did have a slight pot-luck this night.

Pumpkins in Costumes We had the kids dress up and do pumpkin carving. Only three of us showed up for this one, but it was so much more fun to carve the pumpkins together instead of by ourselves! The kids liked showing off their costumes to one another too. I hate that sometimes kids only get to wear their costumes one time… This gave them another excuse!

I Want S’More! I brought the graham crackers and marshmallows. Everyone else brought their s’more treats. The kids loved this one just as much as the adults! If the weather had worked with us, we would have used the fireplace. As I recall, we used my convection oven to melt the mellows because of a rain storm. I LOVE S’Mores. Any excuse to make and eat s’mores is a great one for me!

I am having trouble remembering the other themes right now. What dinner-party-with-kids themes have you experienced that were fun?

Image Sources
Pancakes In Pajamas
Worms In Dirt
Pumpkins in Costumes
S’Mores